Video Game History Foundation calls on the ESA to find a way to ‘legally preserve’ digital-only games for research

The Video Game History Foundation (VGHF) has called on trade groups like the Entertainment Software Association to find a solution for preserving digital games on a long-term basis.

Sony‘s double announcement on Wednesday that it will no longer be making disc versions of its games from January 2028, and will be closing the PS3 and PS Vita stores next year, has renewed debate about video game preservation.

Some argue that a large proportion of today’s modern games may become lost media decades from now, not only due to the closure of digital stores but because many games now rely on connections to online servers which will eventually be turned off.

In a statement reacting to both decisions, the VGHF says the decision to stop releasing games on discs won’t actually have a large immediate impact on professional game preservation, because they haven’t considered discs the best way to preserve games for some time.

“This is unfortunate news for those who still prefer buying games on physical media, and is certainly a hit to consumer rights, the resale market, and game creators whose businesses rely on the physical market,” the VGHF’s statement reads. “But from the perspective of professional preservationists, this doesn’t have as much of an impact as you might expect.

“The reality is that the vast majority of video games produced over the last two decades were not made for dedicated home video game consoles, let alone pressed to physical media.

“And even when they were released on physical media, a day-one digital patch was all but guaranteed, meaning that even though a disc is preserving data in an accessible way, it may not represent the game that people actually played.

“Museums and archives have been preparing for this future for a while, with the expectation that putting discs on a shelf isn’t going to be a long-term solution for preserving new games.”

The VGHF goes on to call on trade groups like the ESA – which it has been feuding with for some time – to come up with a preservation solution that will enable museums and researchers to continue accessing today’s games 50 years from now.

“What continues to baffle us is what the industry expects institutions like ours to do about it,” the statement reads. “If platform owners are deciding to eliminate physical media and older digital storefronts, then we’d also like to see trade groups like the Entertainment Software Association offer meaningful solutions for archives and museums to legally preserve digital-only content and make it accessible for research.

“Everyone agrees this is a serious problem, but the ESA has repeatedly opposed the efforts of cultural heritage institutions to reform digital copy protection laws to make it easier to do this work.

“The industry needs to meaningfully come to the table on this issue, because asking museums to download a copy of Grand Theft Auto VI and hope it’ll run in 50 years is not a preservation solution.”

One of the key words in the VGHF’s statement is “legally”, because some have argued for some time now that piracy appears to be the only way to ensure games will still be playable decades from now.

Responding to a user on Bluesky who suggested this on Wednesday, VGHF founder Frank Cifaldi replied: “As the director of a historical video game preservation institution, and someone who has dedicated his entire adult life to this cause, this is accurate. We have attempted to work with the industry’s trade organization to find a legal path forward, but they refuse to offer a meaningful alternative.”

In 2024 the US Copyright Office refused to grant an exemption that would allow researchers to remotely access out-of-print video games, so they could access them without having to visit libraries’ and archives’ physical premises.

The VHGF criticised the decision at the time, blaming the ESA for lobbying against the campaign and saying: “The game industry’s absolutist position – which the ESA’s own members have declined to go on the record to support – forces researchers to explore extra-legal methods to access the vast majority of out-of-print video games that are otherwise unavailable.”